Coulomb Technologies unveiled a new electric vehicle (EV) charging station at Discovery World in downtown Milwaukee Thursday.

The City of Milwaukee's Office of Environmental Sustainability (OES) is paving the way for electric vehicles in Milwaukee by installing five public EV charging stations throughout the city. All funding for the project is provided for through a American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (stimulus) grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.The stations are manufactured by Campbell, Calif.-based Coulomb Technologies and are part of Coulomb's ChargePoint Network, which has grown to more than 6,000 non-residential charging stations across the nation. The network provides a variety of features for drivers, including smartphone apps that help with trip planning, management of charging costs, and assistance in finding and operating public ChargePoint-enabled stations.Milwaukee, in partnership with Discovery World and AT&T Wisconsin, unveiled the first EV station outside the museum. The Discovery World site is one of two EV charging stations fully operational and available for public use in Milwaukee, with three additional sites coming soon. A site at City Center is also currently operational. Three stations in progress are located at Brady Street, the Clarion Hotel and the west side of Milwaukee.An additional public electric vehicle charging station is located at the Schlitz Park office complex in downtown Milwaukee.Carbon Day Automotive, along with local partner ElectriCharge Mobility, provided the charging stations for these projects as part of the network expansion throughout Wisconsin. At the event, AT&T Wisconsin also announced that it has quadrupled its Alternative Fuel Vehicle (AFV) fleet program in Wisconsin to nearly 200 vehicles since it was first launched in 2010. Both the City of Milwaukee and AT&T Wisconsin highlighted the importance of using AFVs to not only help reduce carbon emissions and improve neighborhood air quality, but to also help reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil and save on fuel costs."Within the next 12 months, the state of Wisconsin will see new makes and models of electric vehicles on our roads, and we want to raise awareness of these fuel-efficient and emission-free vehicles," said Matthew Howard, City of Milwaukee Environmental Sustainability Director. "We're letting owners of these vehicles know that Milwaukee supports them with public charging infrastructure in convenient and prominent locations. These efforts help Milwaukee build upon the established ChargePoint Network and plan for a greener future for all of us."